Tommy finds an old book in his attic about schools from centuries ago. He shows it to his friend Margie who is surprised to learn that schools were different in the past. Teachers were human, not machines, and taught all children in the same class the same lessons instead of individually tailoring education to each student. Margie imagines that kids from long ago must have had more fun learning together in schools than she does with her mechanical teacher that gives her tests.

1. The Fun They Had
Isaac Asimov
Margie even wrote about it that night in her diary. On the
page headed May 17, 2155, she wrote, “Today Tommy found a
real book!”
It was a very old book. Margie’s grandfather once said that
when he was a little boy Us grandfather told him that there was a
time when all stories were printed on paper.
They turned the pages, which were yellow and crinkly, and It
was awfully funny to read words that stood still instead of
moving the way they were supposed to - on a screen, you know.
And then, when they turned back to the page before, it had the
same words on it that it had had when they read it the first time.
“Gee,” said Tommy, “what a waste. When you’re through
with the book, you just throw it away, I guess. Our television
screen must have had a million books on it and it’s good for
plenty more. I wouldn’t throw it away.”
“Same with mine,” said Margie. She was eleven and hadn’t
seen as many telebooks as Tommy had. He was thirteen.
She said, “Where did you find it?”
“In my house.” He pointed without looking, because he was
busy reading. “In the attic.”
“What’s it about?
“School.”
Margie was scornful. “School? What’s there to write about
school? I hate school.” Margie always hated school, but now she
hated it more than ever. The mechanical teacher had been giving
her test after test in geography and she had been doing worse and
worse until her mother had shaken her head sorrowfully and sent
for the County Inspector.
He was a round little man with a red face and a whole box of
tools with dials and wires. He smiled at her and gave her an apple,
then took the teacher apart. Margie had hoped he wouldn’t know
how to put it together again, but he knew how all right and, after
an hour or so, there it was again, large and black and ugly with a
big screen on which all the lessons were shown and the questions
were asked. That wasn’t so bad. The part she hated most was the
slot where she had to put homework and test papers. She always
had to write them out in a punch code they made her learn when
she was six years old, and the mechanical teacher calculated the
mark in no time.
The inspector had smiled after he was finished and patted her
head. He said to her mother, “It’s not the little girl’s fault, Mrs.
Jones. I think the geography sector was geared a little too quick.
Those things happen sometimes. I’ve slowed it up to an average
ten-year level. Actually, the over-all pattern of her progress is
quite satisfactory.” And he patted Margie’s head again.
Margie was disappointed. She had been hoping they would
take the teacher away altogether. They had once taken Tommy’s
teacher away for nearly a month because the history sector had
blanked out completely.
So she said to Tommy, “Why would anyone write about
school?”
Tommy looked at her with very superior eyes. “Because it’s
not our kind of school, stupid. This is the old kind of school that
they had hundreds and hundreds of years ago.” He added loftily,
pronouncing the word carefully, “Centuries ago.”
Margie was hurt. “Well, I don’t know what kind of school
they had all that time ago.” She read the book over his shoulder
for a while, then said, “Anyway, they had a teacher.”
“Sure they had a teacher, but it wasn’t a regular teacher. It
was a man.”
“A man? How could a man be a teacher?”
“Well, he just told the boys and girls things and gave them
homework and asked them questions.”
“A man isn’t smart enough.”
“Sure he is. My father knows as much as my teacher.”
“He can’t. A man can’t know as much as a teacher.”
“He knows almost as much I betcha.”
Margie wasn’t prepared to dispute that. She said, “I wouldn’t
want a strange man in my house to teach me.”
Tommy screamed with laughter, “You don’t know much,
Margie. The teachers didn’t live in the house. They had a special
building and all the kids went there.”
“And all the kids learned the same thing?”
“Sure, if they were the same age.”
“But my mother says a teacher has to be adjusted to fit the
mind of each boy and girl it teaches and that each kid has to be
taught differently.”
“Just the same, they didn’t do it that way then. If you don’t
like it, you don’t have to read the book.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” Margie said quickly. She wanted
to read about those funny schools.
They weren’t even half finished when Margie’s mother called,
“Margie! School!”
Margie looked up. “Not yet, mamma.”
“Now,” said Mrs. Jones. “And it’s probably time for
Tommy, too.”
Margie said to Tommy, “Can I read the book some more
with you after school?”
“Maybe,” he said, nonchalantly. He walked away whistling,
the dusty old book tucked beneath his arm.
Margie went into the schoolroom. It was right next to her
bedroom, and the mechanical teacher was on and waiting for her.
It was always on at the same time every day except Saturday and
Sunday, because her mother said little girls learned better if they
learned at regular hours.
The screen was lit up, and it said: “Today’s arithmetic lesson
is on the addition of proper fractions. Please insert yesterday’s
homework in the proper slot.”
Margie did so with a sigh. She was thinking about the old
schools they had when her grandfather’s grandfather was a little
boy. All the kids from the whole neighborhood came, laughing
and shouting in the schoolyard, sitting together in the
schoolroom, going home together at the end of the day. They
learned the same things so they could help one another on the
homework and talk about it
And the teachers were people. . .
The mechanical teacher was Hashing on the screen: “When
we add the fractions 1/ 2 and 1/ 4. . .”
Margie was thinking about how the kids must have loved it
in the old days. She was thinking about the fun they had.